History of Star Lake, Wisconsin, and Environs

There is a tendency to think of the history of Star Lake as beginning in 1894, with the arrival of the railroad, the construction of the sawmill, and the development of a company town based upon the logging industry. And in the often used sense that history is a written record, the history of Star Lake does begin in 1894. But we know that Europeans had been in the area before that, as surveyors (the government survey occurred in the 1860's; someone had to have laid out the railroad line before it was build in 1894; someone had to have known that there were trees worth cutting), trappers, fishermen, and the like. Somehow the lake had been named in the 1870's (see The Name: Star Lake), and it seems likely that whoever named it had seen it. Before that Native Americans called the area home.

Before the arrival of humans natural forces wrought great change upon the land; the greatest of these was the glaciers. Fire, climate change, the successions of plants and animals all shaped the landscape we see today, and which now constitutes Star Lake.

The subdivisions selected for this webpage, listed on the left, are arbitrary, but they do show the major eras of prehistory and history of Star Lake.

At the Bibliography tab above is an historical bibliography of Star Lake. Listed in the Comprehensive section are articles and other materials that present, however briefly, a complete or overview history of Star Lake. In the Major section are historical references to Star Lake which present historical information about the town and which do not fit any of the separate subject bibliographies, listed at each topic on this webpage. In the Minor section are items relating to, or examples of, the writing of (local) history. They are not specifically related to Star Lake.